Never, ever be without numerous sewing and craft tools

I recently remembered how vitally important this tip is.

I had just returned home from work at around midnight, climbed into bed and started to drift off when, like a bolt out of the blue I remembered that my son, Beloved Offspring number 2 (BO#2) had told me the day before that he had to be an orange fox in the class play. I leapt out of bed to start raiding boxes and begging God to please let me find a fox tail and ears even though I had never bought either. Needless to say this didn’t happen as He was clearly busy with things more important than my fox tail drama. I was however lucky enough to find orange cardboard and a head band in the dress-up box, hence the ears. The tail was more tricky as I don’t tend to use orange stockings much of the time, I find they tend to clash with my paint and play dough stained jeans and T’s. I did find a pair of pink ballet tights which I promptly cut and dyed in orange food colouring. Feeling inspired and mother of the year-ish I chucked the tail in the dryer and went to bed. Bleary eyed and exhausted the next morning I presented my rather sceptical son with my dubious achievement and continued to supervise the morning chaos.

Remembering it was ballet class for my 3 year old (BO#4) I began to hunt down the ballet outfit which I discovered dirty under her bed (of course), gave it a quick hand wash and into the dryer. I’m quite sure that the mothers reading this that are less exhausted and more organised than I (yes, I’m talking to both of you) will realise the fool hardiness of this without me having to spell it out. For the rest of you: suffice to say that the pink leotard is now blotchy orange, because who would have thought, it turns out sodden wet orange food dye stains the inside of the dryer.

One would be inclined to think the saga ends here but one would be wrong.

On his return home that afternoon from school I asked my son how his play went. He casually informs me, “Oh we didn’t do it, I got the day wrong, its next week. And by the way don’t stress about the costume, the teacher's giving us one.” So yes, the drama ended with his death (or very close to it).